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Cheaper how? From your source: > Last month, the energy research firm Wood Mackenzie estimated the cost to decarbonize the U.S. grid alone would be $4.5 trilli

Cheaper how? From your source: > Last month, the energy research firm Wood Mackenzie estimated the cost to decarbonize the U.S. grid alone would be $4.5 trillion, about half of which would go to installing 900 billion watts, or 900 gigawatts (GW), of batteries and other energy storage technologies. (Today, the world's battery storage capacity is just 5.5 GW.) But as other cities follow the example of Los Angeles, that figure is sure to fall. The US was able to build nuclear at plants at ~$1B per GW of capacity when nuclear was built at scale during the 60s and 70s [1]. $4.5 Trillion is considerably more expensive even if we assume that serial production would still be 5x more expensive than historical trends. 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151...

pydry 4y ago
$1 billion per GW is fantasy. Right now it's more like 8 or 9. Building out enough nuclear power for the whole country would easily blow through that $4.5 trillion mark - even if the price halved. Moreover, $6 billion is buying a 6GW "pumped storage" battery in Australia. It's not theoretical it's happening right now. There is a huge amount of potential for this that is just starting to be tapped - mostly coz even at max capacity our solar/wind installations don't yet max out grid demand. Furthermore, 1960s reactors were not safe. Nuclear power can reduce costs by reducing safety and may well do so to compete. At the moment this cost is hidden, as plant owners' liability is capped at a very low level.